Found this in MN12:Four Kinds of Generation32. "Sariputta, there are these four kinds of generation. What are the four? Egg-born generation, womb-born generation, moisture-born generation and spontaneous generation.

33. "What is egg-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out of the shell of an egg; this is called egg-born generation. What is womb-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out from the caul; this is called womb-born generation. What is moisture-born generation? There are these beings born in a rotten fish, in a rotten corpse, in rotten dough, in a cesspit, or in a sewer; this is called moisture-born generation. What is spontaneous generation? There are gods and denizens of hell and certain human beings and some beings in the lower worlds; this is called spontaneous generation. These are the four kinds of generation.....................What does the part about spontaneous generation mean or what is it talking about.....especially with regard to human beings.chownah

Thanks for the link. After looking around a bit it seems that the case of the human undergoing spontaneous rebirth is the case of the non-returner who is spontaneously reborn in the pure abodes. I'm hoping someone can confirm or show that this is wrong.chownah

Yes, non-returner's spontaneous rebirth in the Pure Abodes realm is often mentioned in the suttas. There's another scenario of spontaneously-born humans during the start of a world-cycle as mentioned by Ven. Dhammanando here: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 00#p221093